Page 8 of The Horde King of Shadow

“Why?” I asked, hearing a thread of warning in his tone. “Dannik, what’s happening? You’re scaring me.”

“They’ve asked for you.”

“What?” I asked, thinking I heard him incorrectly. “Who?”

“The dragon riders.”

All my breath left me. Dannik’s grip tightened around my palm.

“Their leader. He asks for you at the East Gate.”

Chapter 3

KLARA

They came every year.

On the tenth month just after the shadow moon.

Sometimes with many dragons, sometimes with just a mere few. But they always came. Every year they left almost as quickly as they’d arrived.

Only this year, they lingered.

I felt the palpable tension in the air, thick like heavy, black smoke, when I stepped beyond the East Gate. My legs froze, my feet not catching up quick enough, and Dannik caught my arm before I tumbled to the tightly packed dark brown earth.

The East Gate, unlike the well-manicured and paved northern entrance, looked out across the wildlands of Dakkar in all of its raw, unforgiving beauty. It was an entrance used primarily byVorakkar—the horde kings—or theSorakkar—the kings of the outposts—when they entered or exited our capital city.

I’d snuck through it often, a secret not even Dannik knew. And sometimes I sat out on the wildlands long into the night, uncaring that sand and dirt streaked my hair from the winds, asI listened to the quiet and felt a peace I’d never known within the confines of Dothik. I missed the wildlands. I missed my mother.

For a moment, my eyes fastened on the blackness of the night, only lit by bright starlight. Tonight, however, the shadows of the mountains seemed ominous and the vastness to them seemed insurmountable.

The clearing had been made with lines that no one dared to cross. Bright torchlight illuminated the wide circle, my father and his legion of guards on one side, protecting the council, theLakkari, and my half sisters, and a line of strangers on the other.

Behind them, a great dragon seemed to materialize out of the darkness. I felt my chest go tight, shock piercing through my lungs like a dagger.

“Strength,” Dannik whispered into my ear. A reminder. A softly spoken word, and yet it seemed amplified as I stared in the golden eyes of the dragon that Irecognized. My scar gave a mighty throb, and I squeezed my eyes closed, feeling that panic and confusion rise in me, hearing my mother’s hushed horror as she’d tried to quiet me in her arms.

“Dannik…” I said, my tone a strange mixture of a plea and a realization.It can’t be true…because then that would mean it’sallreal,I thought.

I felt my brother’s grip on my arm tighten before I felt him step in front of me.

The dragon roared, so sudden and violent that it trembled the earth beneath our feet, and I heard the startled cries from my father’s council. Dannik froze. I heard a breath loosen from between his lips.

On the wildlands, I heard the other dragons respond. Now we knew they were there, hidden in the darkness, the weight of them shaking the earth as they stamped their limbs like a warning rumble. It sounded like thunder.

Then all at once it went quiet. Not just quiet…silent.

“Zaridan recognizes you,aralye,” came the voice.

My eyes snapped open, fastening on the male who had stepped forward into the circle, breaking away from the line of the dragon riders that had come this night. Familiar eyes met mine, and all at once, I remembered the strength and warmth of his hand on my arm, leaving behind a glittering black dust.

It washim.

The danger I’d sensed in the marketplace with him only seemed amplified with the dragon looming over his shoulder.

“My wonder is if you recognize her,” he continued, never taking his eyes off me on his approach.

“Zaridan,” I whispered, blinking, the name stretched out on my tongue.

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